The World Line of the Horizon Star

Some would say I was a lost man in a lost world

Sex, lies, and DVD's

January 5th, 2006

Current Mood:

weird and cold

Current Music:

Chris Isaak: "Fade Away"

I got another box of DVD movies from my parents recently. I just finished watching "Unfaithful." That was one twisted picture. There was some pretty steamy sex in there. I love it when a woman gets all quivery and squirmy like that. What a power trip, to make someone do that. It's so profoundly gratifying to see a woman go nutz on what you're doing to her. Whew, that was hot. The second half of the movie was some pretty intense suspense, though.

I had the same question Richard Gere's character had. How in the hell could she think he wouldn't know, or did it just not matter? I can't believe that a woman of average or better intelligence could seriously believe that the guy wouldn't notice. Do women really think that all guys are that emotionally slow? You have to wonder.

Why is it always the guy's fault when a married woman is seduced? Without fail, at least in American movies, the woman has a nebbishy husband, a boring vaccuous suburban life, and her paramour is always some aggressive, hot, Euro-trash art dealer or other avant garde metro type who corners the poor woman and breaks down her resistance with expensive drinks, presents, and hot pursuit. You never see a married woman just get a wild hair and seduce and fuck her chiropractor on the exam table, unless the movie is a comedy.

I was beginning to wonder why I was so okay with being single. Oh. Yeah. Right. Thanks Mom.

"Unfaithful" is the only American non-kids video I own (well, aside from the porn stuff). I loved that movie and I thought that Diane Lane was excellent in her role. The scene on the train coming home from her first liaison, where she is choking back her tears and washing herself in the basin, is so spot-on, it brought chills to my spine. That was exactly how I felt the first time I was unfaithful to my husband.

I just saw Richard Gere interviewed on Actor's Studio. He said that the Lyne (sp?) intentionally showed an average, happy couple with no difficulties because he did not want viewers to be able to draw a clean cause and effect to her infidelity. That would have been an easy film. Indeed, I was uncomfortable with the plot because I couldn't figure out why the Diane Lane character decided to step over the line. (Oh yeah, of course...the guy was handsome and sexy and Richard Gere was a nebbish in a crew neck sweater. Go figure.)

I don't think that was the best choice in films for your mother to send to you, however hot the sex scenes.

Whee!

Nah, it was the seduction scenes that were just so hot. That was a study in drama. That "goofy kid" doing all the right moves -- knowing just when, and where, and how to touch her. That scene in the bedroom, where he's stroking her legs and belly and making her vibrate like a guitar string and open like a flower...and then the teasing her out of her underwear and watching her resistance unfold and cruble slowly, inexorably. That was intense. She didn't even kick off her fuck-me pumps. That's cinema. I wanted a cigarette, and I've never even tried tobacco before!

...he did not want viewers to be able to draw a clean cause and effect to her infidelity. That would have been an easy film. Indeed, I was uncomfortable with the plot because I couldn't figure out why the Diane Lane character decided to step over the line.

That was my point. Sometimes it is hard to figure out a woman's motivation. Sometimes they do have that powerful urge to "get some," just like the philandering guy who is a cad. The thing is, in movies, women always have to have all these complicated and explicatory reasons for being seduced by someone else. It is only in comedy pictures, where the woman is an unsympathetic, calculating, gold-digging type character, that the woman's desires and urges are the primary reason for her infidelity. Richard Gere types can get cheated on too -- all a woman has to do is have the right kind of character, and get used to having him around enough to take him for granted.

Actually, I thought it was a really entertaining movie, just very intense.

Re: Whee!

I agree that Lyne really nailed the seduction/sex scenes perfectly...and Lane acted them so well. I remember that scene when her stomach skin is vibrating out of what? Fear, anticipation, desire, guilt...it is all there. The French guy tells her to slap him---which he knows she needs to do to break her trance and move forward with the penetration.

A perfect movie (at least the first half; I wasn't fond of the rest of it. I thought the ending sort of dribbled itself away).

A Theory

I think most movies about, or featuring infidelity are pitched to women in the first place. Either the infidelity is about some poor woman whose husband runs around on her, or else it's about some sympathetic heroine who is swept off her feet by some urban lothario. I think that Hollywood is just attempting to avoid turning off their target audience with an unsympathetic character.

I had the same question Richard Gere's character had. How in the hell could she think he wouldn't know, or did it just not matter? I can't believe that a woman of average or better intelligence could seriously believe that the guy wouldn't notice. Do women really think that all guys are that emotionally slow? You have to wonder.

Excellent point. Wise friends are a treasure.

Insight. Your company is going to miss you when you leave them, Nancy! That's an interesting perspective! It's a comedy of errors or a tragedy of misperception. Sometimes, The Apple is its own punishment. To eat of the Tree of Knowledge subjects us to the often terrible consequences inherent in the limits of perception and knowability. Now there's something to ponder.

Re: Excellent point. Wise friends are a treasure.

I think it's part of the human condition sometimes in terms of making a life with a partner. One day - under the stress of everyday life, the day in day out of it all - we sometimes stop seeing each other.

Then one day - someone else sees us.

I'm not sure, at that stage of the game, there is anything more seductive.

*eyebrow raised* Power trip? I wonder if that's how most men view sex.Sex is hilarious, at any rate :P. We're such puppets to it, have such silly biologically and culturally programmed responses to it. Pavlov on a larger scale, yknow.

Not all "power trips" need be "kinky" ones, per se

Having the ability, and being granted access to, the deepest darkest recesses of someone else's nervous system certainly is a kind of power, even in the most plain vanilla of sexual interactions. I could write reams of stuff on this topic, if I had the time. I've done a lot of thinking on the topic. As a small illustration of principle, have you ever stopped to consider what actual biological function ticklishness serves?

ok, i'm going to try this yet again for the 4th time and i hope it sticks...if not - i'm going to email you and be done with it...

so, with that said:

personally, i don't guys are that emotionally slow - i think it evens out with the female of the species in that some are like that as well...i think there are those who don't put enough into the relationship more than what there is already...gads - but that came out sounding awkward...i hope you know what i meant to say...

as for why is it always the guys fault when a married woman gets seduced? i've never thought that as i feel it's a 2 way street and each is wanting/doing something that they know not ought to be done unless with their significant others...

this post brought something to mind...my b/f and i were discussing a mutual friend (decent intelligence, doesn't look like a model and is a really nice person) who was having a fling w/her b/f's bestfriend (said friend was of average intelligence, not european, nor hunky looking, just your average looking american guy, a touch over weight and a nice guy)...apparently the b/f knew about this, but said and did nothing - as he and the gal had been together for years, but he knew the bestfriend longer and he loved both of them...my b/f said it was the friend's fault that the our gal did this and i disagreed...i said it was mutual - but it should have never happened in the first place...